Patrick challenged us on the question 'What is our church going to be?' He spoke of the situation that Nehemiah and the Israelites having rebuilt the walls: the rich Jewish nobles and rulers were exploiting the poorer Israelites by taking them as slaves, getting them to sell their land and charging interest. The poor people were on the edge of a riot and Nehemiah had to decide what to do: does he stand against his peers(the nobles and rulers) and speak up for those that were being oppressed? Having rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, was Nehemiah going to allow it to be a place of persecution and imprisonment for the poor and needy or was it going to be a place of safety and freedom from persecution? Is our church going to be a place of imprisonment or freedom for those who enter into its wall?
This audio is part of the collection:Community Audio It also belongs to collection:
![[help]](/images/question.gif "[help]")
)![[Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0]](http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png "[Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0]")